As an in-depth study of the social and political events and the general military activity in Buckinghamshire this book is an invaluable resource on a county during the civil wars and has much to recommend it.

Battlefields Trust

'A fascinating period of our history very well covered in this very interesting, and well researched book.'

Stone & Dinton Parish Magazine

As mentioned in

The Sticks Magazine

As mentioned in

The Bucks Herald

This is a useful examination of the impact of the Civil War on the county community, showing that even areas that didn’t suffer a major battle or siege were affected heavily by the conflict. It will also be of great interest to local historians in Buckinghamshire.

historyofwar.org

Beckett's book is, as he says early on, based upon his notes for the Civil War Exhibition at Bucks County Museum in 2004-5 and this accounts, in part, for the somewhat eclectic coverage of some aspects of the period in this book.

There were no major military actions within the County during the 1640s and 1650s but this book is very much about 'A County at War', which could well have been its subtitle. As you might guess from the above opening lines I found some aspects of the book frustratingly light on detail - in that I wanted more - but I accept that there is only so much that you can get into a book like this without turning it into a detailed, but almost unreadable, study. To be fair the same criticism could be laid at so many other County Histories and within its 200 pages Becket does give an excellent account of both the war within, and the effect of the war upon, Buckinghamshire - this is a book about the County during the War and successfully misses falling into the trap of simply discussing the English Civil Wars as a narrative simply alluding to the County by their effect on it.

All in all this is a well-researched and eminently readable (and certainly top marks for this latter point) account of Buckinghamshire during the mid decades of the 17th Century and deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in either the English Civil War or simply the history of their County.

Amazon Reviewer